Chapter 17: Chapter17-The Secret Conference, Sweeping the Area Around Starter Village

Just as the entire room fell silent, a voice suddenly rang out.

"Commander, it is not true that we have never encountered players from other Starter Villages."

Everyone turned toward the speaker. It was none other than Overlord_Dawn, the guild leader of the Overlord Guild.

Overlord_Dawn rose to his feet and spoke in a grave voice. "One of our guild members encountered a player who claimed to have come from Starter Village No. 125.

"However, that player was killed on the spot. After investigating his identity, we discovered that, in reality, he died of a cerebral stroke."

As soon as those words fell, the entire conference room once again descended into deathly silence.

The Commander took a deep breath before continuing, "Is the teleportation portal in the Arctic still functioning normally? Is the production of teleportation stones there stable?"

Another reporting officer immediately stood up and answered, "Reporting to the Commander, the teleportation portal ceased production and shut down three days ago.

"According to the inventory count conducted afterward, it produced a total of 8,134,529,312 teleportation stones."

Upon hearing this, the elderly man in military uniform let out a long, heavy sigh.

"In other words, exactly one for every person on Earth... Such terrifying precision..."

At those words, the expressions of everyone present shifted slightly.

The old man continued, "Begin mass-producing gaming pods immediately. Reduce all prices to ten percent of their original level. We must allow as many people as possible to log into the game."

Upon hearing this decision, a representative from the business sector suddenly spoke up. "But Commander, regarding the costs—"

The elderly man’s gaze turned sharp as he cut him off.

"At a time like this, you are still worrying about costs? Has the military ever withheld funding from you?

"It is decided. Meeting adjourned!"

...

At noon the following day.

John woke up in the bedroom of his river-view suite at the WJ Hotel.

Rubbing his eyes, he walked into the living room and discovered that a warm breakfast and a steaming hot lunch had already been laid out on the table.

Beside them was a specially prepared complimentary gift set.

It seemed the hotel manager truly was attentive.

As it happened, John had not eaten anything since the previous night. By now, he was already starving.

He immediately sat down at the table and began devouring the food.

After eating and drinking to his satisfaction, John returned to the bedroom and reclined in the soft lounge chair.

Once he had confirmed that there were no surveillance cameras anywhere around him, he sank his consciousness into the teleportation gem.

...

When John opened his eyes again, he had already returned to the game world.

The first thing he did was open the World Channel, where he discovered that a considerable number of players were entering the game world one after another around this time.

Perhaps because John had poured a massive sum of money into the black market the previous night, betting on there being sixteen dungeons, the popularity of the dungeon-count betting market had skyrocketed even further.

More and more players had joined the search for dungeons hidden around Starter Village.

He had to admit that the game’s popularity and the players’ exploration progress were developing incredibly quickly. Through the efforts of countless players, they had actually managed to discover another three dungeons.

However, they had only discovered them.

Hell Mode still had not been cleared.

The player who would claim the true first-clear reward had yet to appear.

At present, the dungeon with the fastest progress had only been pushed as far as Hard Mode. Even then, it had required a full twelve-player party and nearly an hour of fighting.

It was precisely because three dungeons had been discovered in quick succession that many early-stage strategy teams from the major guilds, who had previously concluded that Starter Village contained no dungeons whatsoever, had already been dismissed.

John opened his in-game black market panel and discovered that his odds had already risen to 1:150,000!

Should he win this wager, his funds would instantly increase fifteenfold!

John closed the panel, but he did not immediately set out in search of the remaining dungeons.

He intended to wait a little longer, allowing the dungeon betting craze to grow even hotter and the odds to climb even higher. When the time came, he would make an overwhelming fortune in a single stroke.

With that thought, John opened his quest panel.

Displayed across it were more than thirty densely packed quests.

These were all the side quests available in Starter Village. Most of them were extermination-type quests or material-gathering quests.

As it happened, John now possessed a large-area nuclear explosion skill. It was perfect for clearing entire maps.

"I might as well complete all of these quests."

John silently murmured to himself.

Then, in the very next instant—

Whoosh!

His figure vanished from where he stood.

...

Minotaur Tribe.

A small party of players was currently locked in a bitter struggle against the monsters of the Minotaur Tribe.

All manner of skills continuously slammed into the bodies of the minotaur warriors.

However, against the thick-skinned and immensely durable minotaur warriors, those attacks barely reduced their HP at all.

The two sides exchanged blow after blow in a fierce and chaotic battle.

Just as the stalemate continued—

All of a sudden, a figure dressed in pajamas appeared directly in the middle of the battlefield.

Everyone’s eyes narrowed, confusion rising in their hearts.

Who was this guy?

Where had he come from?

At that moment, John, who had appeared in the center of the battlefield, spoke.

"Fall back."

Before the players could even react, an immense amount of heat began gathering in front of John’s chest, as though a blazing furnace had suddenly taken shape there.

As the heat condensed, a dazzling white light gradually emerged.

Only three seconds later—

Centered around John, a terrifying wave of energy violently erupted.

In the blink of an eye, it devoured the entire Minotaur Tribe.

The players who had failed to escape the attack range in time, together with every minotaur around them, were instantly vaporized beneath the white light, leaving behind nothing but charred remains.

A continuous string of system notifications rang out beside John’s ears.

[You have killed a Lv. 5 Minotaur Warrior. You have gained 100 EXP, 1 silver coin, and 10 Reputation!]

[You have killed a Lv. 10 Minotaur Chieftain. You have gained 800 EXP, 20 silver coins, and 100 Reputation!]

[You have killed...]

John gazed at the charred corpses littering the ground. With a single thought, he devoured them all.

[You have devoured a Lv. 5 Minotaur Warrior. You have gained 5 Free Attribute Points and 1 Luck Point!]

[You have devoured a Lv. 10 Minotaur Chieftain. You have gained 10 Free Attribute Points, 2 Luck Points, and the C-rank skill: Fist of Might!]

[You have devoured...]

From this single wave alone, John accumulated a total of 8,000 EXP, 1,000 Attribute Points, 20 gold coins, and 40 Luck Points.

It was a tremendously profitable harvest.

After clearing the battlefield, John’s figure flashed once before disappearing from the spot.

...

Over the next several hours, dazzling nuclear explosions erupted one after another at every monster gathering area surrounding Starter Village.

Every so often, the earth would suddenly tremble violently.

Inside Starter Village, everyone was shocked beyond words. Whether they were NPCs or players, all of them stared blankly in the direction of the explosions.

None of them had any idea what was causing those nuclear blasts.

Only a handful of players began spreading the rumor that every one of these explosions was connected to a mysterious man in pajamas.

Under John’s relentless clearing, the monster territories surrounding Starter Village were transformed into scorched earth one after another.

Although the monsters on the world map would eventually respawn, it would take an entire day for them to recover.

As the monsters were wiped clean, the players of Starter Village suddenly lost every place where they could grind monsters.

Left with no other choice, they could only grit their teeth and head toward the four discovered dungeons, shifting their grinding locations there instead.

...

Four hours later.

Inside the castle.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A series of rough, violent knocks suddenly rang out from the lord’s door.

The lord frowned.

Who was so lacking in manners and basic courtesy?

He put down his pen, rose from his seat, and walked over to open the door.

The moment it opened, he saw John standing outside, still dressed in his pajamas.

Before the lord could even say anything, a fist the size of a sandbag rapidly enlarged in his field of vision.

Bang!

The punch smashed squarely into his nose.

Thud!

The lord was knocked straight to the floor by John’s single punch.